


six feet under

by Acacius



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: & how it likely mirrors guillermo's arc, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, and then more hurt lmao, anyway i maybe got emotional thinking abt nandor's past, fic inspired by my adhd hell brain, oh & topher's mini-fridge makes a guest appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25120291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacius/pseuds/Acacius
Summary: Nandor finds himself seeking out his familiar after a particularly worrisome nightmare. Set between 2x09 and 2x10.
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 12
Kudos: 112





	six feet under

**Author's Note:**

> listen,,, this was originally supposed to be a nandor-centric character study specifically abt his childhood & how i hc him as having adhd but uhh... emotions happened & suddenly this is a too-serious 4k+ fic set roughly between 2x09 and 2x10 w/ big nandor/guillermo energy.

Nandor stood at his coffin, a scattering of letters and papers strewn about. The current letter in his hand was one of a few letters he had kept from his parents when he was off training in the Al Quolanudarian forces. He read the words carefully as his ability to read Farsi was only passable at best nowadays, but he got the gist of it.

They asked if he was eating well, if he was making friends, if he was getting enough sleep. He had told them about his training, how he was slowly making a name for himself, how he could now hold a sword and not feel his arms tremble at the unfamiliar weight, how natural it felt to hold a weapon despite never having done so until a few short months ago. He did not tell them about the army’s lack of food and supplies, how cold he was at night without any blankets, how many boys his age went to sleep and did not wake up. They were able to guess that conditions were not good—plenty of neighbors would tell of the horrors that their sons wrote of—but he did not want them to worry anymore than they already did.

It had been one of the last letters he received as a youth before he went off to fight in his first real battle. He’d been young then, probably no older than sixteen, but that was how it was back then. The rich and powerful were always ready to sacrifice the poor or the young to fight in wars of their own making.

For some time he stood there, a silent, unmoving relic to the bygone era of his childhood. It had been so many years since his parents had walked the earth but his memory of them—the last glimpse he got while he was human, scrambling up onto John, a dark brown Turkoman horse that had been his parents parting gift—was seemingly etched behind his eyelids. He saw them now, his father, a man who looked strikingly similar to him, his beard streaked with grey, hazel eyes shining with unshed tears as he waved solemnly. His mother, a lithe, slip of a woman, callused hands gripping her husband’s free hand as if it were an anchor, unable to look her only son in the eyes. Perhaps she was afraid of what she might see on his face… or what she wouldn’t see.

Though he knew now that displays of emotion were not a sign of weakness, it had been almost taboo for men to show any feeling besides anger during his childhood under Ottoman rule. Nandor had never been that good at lying—even if his mouth said one thing, his actions would inevitably betray the truth of his heart. So while he would rarely discuss his emotions aloud even now in the current enlightened era, that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel things.

He felt a lot of things. Currently, he felt homesick. He missed his parents. He missed his horse. He missed the sense of connection he felt to his culture, his family, his human life. Nandor had almost forgotten Farsi entirely, his run-in with his ghost bringing back what he did recall of the language ever so slowly. One day, he feared it would all be gone—that the last string would sever and he would be left to drift through time untethered, nothing to remind him of who he was at his core. 

Nandor reread the letter again for the tenth time that night, fingers skimming the worn parchment with reverence. If he closed his eyes, he could see that day so clearly. The clay brick underneath John’s hooves sizzling in the midday heat, the sun high above him, no clouds in the sky to offer even a brief respite from the near blinding light. He remembered looking back one last time to see his mother cradled against his father’s chest, shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs—how he wished he had turned around then, assured them that he would come back stronger and richer and able to support the family. But he had been young and stupid and naïve, believing he would get to see his parents soon enough. He hadn’t known the price it would take to go from a pawn to a king—how the years would pass in a whirlwind of conquests with no opportunity to return home… at least as a human.

“Master?” Guillermo called suddenly from the threshold of the door. “It’s almost dawn. Weren’t you supposed to go hunting tonight?”

Nandor tore his gaze away from the letter, blinking in surprise. He found himself lying before he could even rationalize why he’d done so. “I lost my appetite. I’ll go out tomorrow.”

“Do you need help getting ready for bed tonight?” Guillermo asked hesitantly, likely sensing some kind of tension in the vampire’s rigid stance.

Nandor thought about Guillermo’s hand in his, warm and stabilizing as he stepped into his coffin. He thought about the delicious, red fount that gushed underneath his skin, a temptation even on the nights that Nandor had already fed. He thought he did well, hiding the part of himself that always secretly hungered to sink its teeth into Guillermo—but there were times where he needed to put distance between himself and his familiar if only to preserve the decade of trust they had built together.

“…No. It is alright, Guillermo. You can retire early for the night. I’ll go to coffin in a few minutes.”

“Goodnight, Master.”

It was only when Guillermo’s footsteps had bled out into the hallway that Nandor replied, voice feather-soft. “Goodnight, Guillermo.”

With a sigh, Nandor folded the letter, returning it to his trunk of correspondences. When he finally fell into his coffin, more corpse than vampire, he dreamed in the only way vampires were able to dream: in nightmares. It was one of the few negative side effects of vampirism, one that wasn’t often mentioned since it was usually just a hindrance at best. Nandor didn’t normally fear what he would see when he closed his eyes, but this time, as he drifted off into sleep, the scene that played before him felt like an omen.

In his nightmare, he was back at home, his parents waiting under the shade of a cypress tree to greet him. As he approached, their expression morphed into fear.

He tried to speak, to soothe their worries, but only blood poured from his mouth, coating the front of his tunic. When he looked down, he saw that there was a stake wedged in his chest, piercing through his ribs and into the fragile network of flesh that made up his heart. In his periphery, he traced the outline of a long shadow, unmoving.

He could not see who was standing behind him, but the feeling that he now knew as grief cut through the haze of his dream along with something else: the sinking feeling of betrayal. He was drowning in blood and all his parents could do was watch, silently, as their son became nothing but a bubbling red smear in the dirt.

Outside the coffin, Guillermo dutifully dusted the array of knick-knacks and baubles the vampire had obtained through his long life, briefly pausing to fix one of the curtains. With something akin to morbid curiosity, he pulled the curtain back, allowing a sliver of light to fall against Nandor’s coffin. Then, as if waking from a dream, Guillermo shook his head, tugging the heavy curtains back into place.

* * *

It was rare, but there were times where Nandor chose to disembark from his coffin on his own. That night, he woke earlier than usual and dressed himself, the nightmare still fresh in his mind. With nothing on his agenda aside from going out to hunt, he found himself drifting towards Guillermo’s little bedroom underneath the stairs, listening for any signs of life.

There was only the steady sound of Guillermo breathing, heart beating at a slow, relaxed pace, something that he recognized as indicating that his little familiar was asleep. Carefully, he ducked into the room, shoulders hunched in a way that reminded him of the way vampires stalked their prey in classic black-and-white movies. Nandor tried not to make it a habit, invading Guillermo’s personal space, since he did understand to some extent that he was, for all intents and purposes, Guillermo’s boss, but he felt worryingly shaken up from his nightmare.

Somehow, seeing his familiar asleep, dozing lightly above the covers of his bed, already dressed for the night, brought him some level of comfort. Nandor did not want to think too hard on why seeing Guillermo safe and relaxed stirred feelings he had not felt since he was a human so he busied himself with other, more important things—like snooping.

The drawings pinned to the wall were actually quite good. Nandor was rather secretive of his own hobbies, but arts-and-crafts, as humans called it, brought the vampire more joy than he thought was respectable for someone of his background and status. He smiled briefly at the glitter portrait he made for Guillermo, the art piece balanced on the tiny writing desk and pushed against the wall. It had taken him a dozen hours or so, but the worst part had been shoving the canvas out of sight whenever Guillermo had come into his room to attend to him. At one point he had snapped at Guillermo to stop trailing him like a shadow and immediately regretted the words. He hadn’t seen his familiar for the rest of the night, not even to help him to coffin, and it had left a sour taste in his mouth that not even a delicious virgin could wash out.

His gaze roamed over the few photos that Guillermo had of himself. Though they were mostly from when he was a child, it still made something in Nandor’s undead heart ache. He was happy that Guillermo had gotten an easier childhood than what he had gone through. They didn’t talk much about what Guillermo’s past was like, who he was before they crossed paths, but he did know that the familiar had been a target of bullies growing up. Horror movies and monsters, especially vampires, had been an escape for Guillermo, shaping him into the man he was today. If Guillermo asked it of him, he would gladly kill anyone who had bullied him in his youth. But that was it: Guillermo was still too soft, too kind, too human to ask for such things like retribution. He could rationalize luring humans to their deaths if it was because the vampires needed to eat, but killing for the sake of killing was still beyond him.

Treading towards the mini-fridge that once belonged to Topher, Nandor’s lips quirked upwards at some of the magnets Guillermo had stuck to the front of it. There was a magnet that was shaped like vampire fangs. Another magnet, a tear-shaped drop of blood, was something Guillermo took from a blood drive he attended with Nandor. While they had originally gone to swipe a few free blood bags, Guillermo ended up donating blood anyway to distract one of the nurses while Nandor took around four or five blood bags that were chilling in an ice-box. Feeling a bit shameful for stealing blood that was meant for ill humans, the vampire had scattered a few gold coins before leaving.

Emboldened by how deeply Guillermo seemed to be sleeping, Nandor reached to open the fridge, curious as to just what kind of foods and drink Guillermo would have stashed inside. It was easier finding information this way, he reasoned, than asking Guillermo to his face. He wanted to remain as aloof as he could, neither too cold as to scare him away nor too warm and threaten to lose what respect Guillermo did hold for him.

What Nandor sees in the fridge has him hissing in pain, slamming the door shut as if he’d been burned. His gaze darts from the fridge to the bed to the very awake human sitting on the mattress, the first stirrings of fear slithering at the base of the vampire’s skull. There is a look in Guillermo’s eyes that he had only seen a handful of times before—a spark of something dark, something that reminded him of disgust. Usually, the darkness would disappear so quickly that Nandor could pretend that he was only imagining it. Now, he wished he hadn’t been so naïve to think that it didn’t matter, that they would always be a pair, master and familiar, vampire and human, bound together. He could feel their connection severing, could see them drifting apart, leaving him to be an island of a man once again despite everything he had done to try and stop it. Though it doesn't come as a surprise. At least not if he was being honest with himself. Nandor had felt their relationship unraveling for months now—but this new dynamic, one where Nandor was never sure where they both stood, seemed horrifically permanent.

“Why are you looking through my stuff?” Guillermo asks, no hint of nervousness or fear in his voice. 

Nandor can’t help but let out a hiss in response, pointing a finger in Guillermo's direction. “Why do _you_ have crucifixes and stakes and garlic in your mini-fridge?”

“I asked you a question first.” Guillermo points out, voice still frustratingly calm. The old Guillermo, the one that did not kill vampires, the one that didn’t hide vampire-hunting equipment in his fridge, would not be so emotionless. Nandor did not know what to make of this Guillermo, the one that looked like his familiar, but seemed infinitely more jaded and sharp. 

It was a rash decision, he knows it, but Nandor can’t shake the feeling that if he doesn’t do something, Guillermo will disappear, slip through his fingers like smoke, become nothing more than an apparition, a haunting, unreachable. He is able to wrap his hands around Guillermo’s shoulders, ready to talk some sense into him, but the words do not get the chance to come out.

Nandor feels the press of a stake against his heart and he’s reminded of when Guillermo pointed the ends of the broken broom against him, but this time is different. This time, he had done it on purpose. The realization nearly brings tears to his eyes. If he was human, he was sure he would have cried. He was no stranger to betrayal--plenty of his _friends_ back when he was ruler of Al Quolanudar had allied themselves with him for their own selfish gains. But he was so sure that Guillermo was different... that maybe, just maybe, Guillermo enjoyed his company, that he would stay beside him even if the offer of being turned was off the table. 

Where did that Guillermo go--the one that genuinely laughed at his jokes and held his hand and looked at him as if he were something to be cherished? When did he get replaced with someone who knew precisely how to break his heart?

“I think you should let go of me,” Guillermo urges, hands visibly trembling around the stake. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”

Nandor obeys, but does not move away, not even when the point of the stake presses harder against him.

“Did I do something wrong?” Nandor asks, lips curled into a frown. “Are you really that unhappy here?” _With me_ , his traitorous mind supplies.

The conflict within himself is apparent on Guillermo’s face. Nandor can hear the way his heartbeat fluttered at his words and knows that he still has some sway over his familiar. He is not just some vampire to Guillermo—he still means something to him even if he had the business end of a wooden stake pointed at his heart.

Slowly, Guillermo lowers the stake before flinging it towards the opposite corner of the room with a frustrated cry. It hits a drawing dead-center, wedging itself into the wall. It is with a sinking feeling of dread that Nandor notices that the drawing looks a lot like himself, fangs and all, the stake blotting out his entire chest.

“I’m so sorry,” Guillermo begins, panic evident in his frantic breaths.There is no trace of the emotionless man, the one that looked at Nandor as if he was nothing more than a mosquito buzzing in his ear. “I-I wasn’t thinking. I was scared. I thought you were going to…” he trails, falling back onto the mattress. The tiny bed groans at the sudden weight as Guillermo presses his hands over his face, fingers shaking terribly. It was as if he couldn't believe what he had done, who his hands had almost killed without remorse. 

“That I was going to do what?” Nandor presses, crowding the human. He isn’t angry—his anger had always felt cold, like ice running through his veins, numbing him to anything aside from his own rage. This is something different. It _hurts._ “That I would hurt you? Bite you? Kill you?”

Guillermo nods shakily, eyes tracking the vampire as he swooped down to sit on the bed beside him, a cold hand wrapping around his right wrist. He inhales sharply as Nandor brings his wrist up, the sleeve of Guillermo's sweater sliding down to reveal the smooth skin underneath. He twists his eyes shut at the feeling of the vampire’s cold breath. Nandor’s lips press teasingly against the vulnerable underside of his wrist, fangs mere centimeters away from breaking flesh, the sharp pinprick of his teeth accelerating Guillermo’s rabbit-hearted pulse. There is a fragile moment of tension there, silent save for the sound of Guillermo’s breathing, before Nandor pulls his mouth away. He does not let go of Guillermo’s wrist and, almost absentmindedly, begins rubbing his thumb against his familiar’s frantic pulse point in soothing circles.

Despite everything, he did not like smelling fear on Guillermo—especially if it was his own doing. He only wanted to prove a point. No matter how hungry he was, no matter how much Guillermo’s blood called to him, he could never slide his teeth through flesh without feeling a horrible pang of guilt, one that was enough to make him immediately lose his appetite.

“Don’t you see? I can’t hurt you, Guillermo. You are…” Nandor pauses, struggling to say what he knows he should say. “My fr… my frie… my _friend!_ You do not need to hoard all that vampire hunting equipment. There is no danger here.”

Guillermo sniffles and Nandor smells the barest hint of salt before the waterworks begin, tears trailing down his face. The vampire grimaces. When was the last time he had to console a crying human? He had forgotten just how easily fluids leaked out of them.

“ _Yeesh_ , there’s no need to cry, Guillermo—“ Nandor stops mid-sentence as he feels Guillermo wrap his arms around him so tightly that he imagines his ribs would have hurt from the pressure if he were human. With a long-suffering sigh, Nandor reluctantly returns the hug, patting his back with all the awkwardness that came with having spent over seven hundred and fifty years purposefully ignoring his own emotions.

“There, there?” he says, tone taking on a questioning cadence when it shouldn’t have. “Do not worry, Guillermo, I am only going to add ten demerit points to your record. You’ll be a vampire eventually… just give it another decade or so.”

Whether Guillermo heard him or not, Nandor isn’t sure, but his familiar nestles closer to him all the same. He continues to cry rather loudly, tears leaking through the front of Nandor’s shirt, but he doesn’t mind it as much as he thought he would. He holds his familiar, awkwardly making small talk as Guillermo’s sobs eventually ebbed away.

“I-I’m sorry,” Guillermo says finally once he finds his voice again, though it’s somewhat muffled by the fabric of Nandor’s clothes. “I’m really, really sorry.”

Nandor hums in acknowledgement, resting his chin on the crown of Guillermo’s head, breathing in the clean, floral scent of his familiar’s shampoo. “All is forgiven, Guillermo. Just throw out your vampire-hunter things. They’re very pointy and dangerous—definitely not something that should just be lying around unguarded like that.”

Almost shyly, Guillermo pulls away, but his hands still clutch stubbornly to the front of the vampire’s tear-stained shirt. He tips his head up as he speaks, staring distractingly into Nandor’s eyes.

“So... hypothetically speaking, if you had to choose between doing what you loved and doing what you were good at… which would you choose?”

Nandor blinks, wondering how exactly Guillermo arrived to such a strange line of questioning. He wants to voice his own questions, but bites his tongue at the earnest look Guillermo was giving him. It was obvious that he was looking for an actual thought-out answer and Nandor, for once, decided to oblige with minimal fuss.

“Ideally, what you are good at is also something you like doing—like me with all that conquering and pillaging. But if I were to choose between them, I would choose to do what I am good at. I could probably grow to like doing whatever I am good at. And it’s a lot less embarrassing than pursuing something you love but aren’t very good at.”

“But what if doing what you were good at could hurt those around you? What if it made you _want_ to hurt them?”

Nandor was silent for a long time before he finally spoke, the dull ache of nostalgia thrumming in his chest at the deluge of memories Guillermo’s question drudged up. “There were times where my desire to conquer other nations did get in the way of my relationship with others. I was never good at—what do you humans call it? Work-life balance? See, I worked a lot. Pillaged a lot. It didn’t leave a lot of time for my family or friends. I knew I was hurting them, leaving so much, but that was how it was for rulers back then. You sacrificed.” Nandor’s shoulders slumped tiredly. "Perhaps I would have done things differently in hindsight, but there is no use in crying over spilled blood. Being a conqueror and being a vampire… it was my destiny. It made me who I am today.”

“I…I appreciate the talk, Master,” Guillermo says, expression unreadable once again. It was mildly frustrating, just how often it seemed that Guillermo could not make up his mind as to his role in the house, playing some kind of hot-and-cold game with him. But Nandor was old and, if pushed, could be persuaded to be patient… at least when it came to his familiar.

When he speaks, it’s with a fondness that he no longer cares to hide. “Anytime, Guillermo. Except when I am watching the basketball on the laptop. Or sleeping. Or eating. It’s really hard to talk when you’ve got your teeth in someone’s neck.”

Whatever mask Guillermo had slipped on falls away for a brief moment as he chuckles, lips pulled into a dazzling smile. “Got it.”

Pulling away, Nandor can’t help but notice that he immediately misses Guillermo’s warmth at his side. The thought does not go away even as he closes the lid to his coffin later that night, flexing his fingers absentmindedly, as if he could conjure up the feeling of Guillermo’s soft sweater against his skin.

When he finally closes his eyes and falls asleep, he is met only with the gentle dark of oblivion, no dreams left to plague him.

* * *

It is only a few days later that Guillermo leaves again. _Leaves him again._

When he reads the note Guillermo left in his wake, the simple _Sorry_ hastily scrawled out in black ink, Nandor can’t help but wonder why he even bothered with an apology when all his other apologies so evidently rang hollow. When he opens the mini-fridge, he sees that it is empty except for two bottles of chocolate milk and he wonders if this too is evidence of how little Guillermo cared for him. Was the fridge empty because he threw out everything like he asked or because Guillermo brought it all with him?

He decides on an answer rather quickly.

_Sorry?_ Nandor sneers to himself, fangs bared. _That is all you have to say for yourself? You chose your stakes and crucifixes and garlic over me!_

When he eventually returns to his room, heart aching in an unfamiliar, unpleasant way, he curses loudly, frustration driving him to slam the note down heavily onto his coffin. He hears something that sounds like wood splintering at the force of his fist but is too distressed to give it more than a passing thought.

“He’s gone…” Nandor says to the cameras, sounding a little more lost than before. “He’s gone and I don’t know what to do.”

The camera crew all share a sad, knowing look.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway moral of the story: never ask nandor for advice.


End file.
